Jezebel's Ladder (21 page)

Tom, the envoy, was promoted to the
Economics project. He was one of a handful of volunteers for the new page.
Everyone on the list had been approved except Jez. She wanted desperately to
combine it with Quantum Computing, because she was certain it would generate
Nobel Prize-worthy equations. Fortune refused her request, because she was now
too valuable to risk.

The first project the three
successful volunteers were put on was the financial restructuring of Fortune’s
company, but the modeling went slowly. By the end of the week, Fortune approved
Tom’s request for one of the Economics men to tap the quantum butterfly’s
computing power. Jez refused to attend the session; however, she watched the
video several times. Just before the volunteer slipped into a coma, he said, “It
all makes sense now.”

Afterward, she experimented,
successfully attaching her Quantum butterfly to the top of the Economics page.
She amended the theory of pages to posit that pages should be read in a
specific order, quantum first. Jez had momentum on her side and would make her
financial goal, but at what cost?

While others counted beans, she set
about outlining better safety procedures. Quantum candidates should know math,
but should love other aspects of life more. They should always have something
to anchor them in the world to avoid the navel-gazing or coma problem,
preferably a significant other who was also active.

She added a list of known
side-effects, positive and negative, for each page. The first recommendation of
her Ethics council was to require a paragraph of Empathy training for a
candidate before receiving the Override page.

This pseudo-document kept expanding
until Trina typed all the Post-Its, new company-conduct rules, and other
Jezebel anecdotes into a handbook for new agents. Virus found the on-line copy
and annotated it with details on his Mind-Machine Interface page, confirming
some of Jez’s wilder guesses. The theory document became known as
The 27
Pages
. They even sent Project Midas a copy in an effort to save lives and
generate goodwill. At the end of the document, she included a contact e-mail.

Colonel Ambrose Philip Tannenbaum
responded to her gesture by providing the source and history of every US government-tracked page. The Wonka search project plodded onward with this valuable
input. Eventually, on one of their mandatory meal dates, Jez asked Benny, “How
did you get Empathy?”

He looked around the
make-your-own-burrito restaurant, making sure no one was listening. “From my
dad. He’d made his mint and wanted me to strike it rich in whatever business I
chose.”

“That sneaky old dog; I never
suspected. How did he get it?” she asked.

Benny shrugged. “He never told me.
I just know that he was a well-known graduate student in political science.
After he met my mom, Dad got into movies to pay off his debts and buy a home. Eventually,
the money and power became an end in itself. Mom moved back east and found
another politician who promised to change things.”

She Facebook-messaged the retired
director from the restaurant ladies’ room. His answer came back. “Only for you,
Dollface. It came anonymously in the mail.”

She typed, “Did you save the
envelope?”

“No. But the postmark was Kansas.”

When she came back from the
restroom, Benny knew what she’d been up to. Without a word, he pressured her
into confessing, “It seems our Wonka might be related to the Wizard of Oz.”

****

A few days before the launch, a man
volunteered to join the Ladder project because of their PR efforts. He carried
the page Basic Sustainability Model: air, water, plants, and energy for a
closed system. Jez attached this to the end of Economics to complete the first
page triad—a mathematical representation of a colony. It would take years to
transcribe and enumerate it all.

Fortune finally conceded, “There
are a dozen patents, hundreds of journal articles, and at least five Nobel
Prizes waiting in this triad, and that’s before we turn it over to the people
who can apply it. At a million dollars a prize, I’ll give you credit for the
final five million now. Congratulations, your Project Sirius is go for launch
Monday morning.”

As she told everyone by e-mail,
Fortune added, “Ms. Johnson, even you are going to need more assistants.”

PJ watched the entire network crash in slow motion, unable
to stop the domino effect. As he lost his last hour of programming, his parents
would have blushed to hear him swear. His family belonged to the Quakers, the
Society of Friends. He didn’t drink, smoke, fight, or sleep around, but tended
to curse at the drop of a hat. All programmers did.

He could hear people complaining
and hammering keyboards in the cubicles all around him. He worked for a New Jersey start-up company called LAN Tamers that specialized in secure computer network
solutions. They ran their own product internally, and the swamp was still full
of alligators. PJ was only working for this circus because the stock options
could make him rich enough to retire early. The men in his family had an
unfortunate knack of dying from stroke around age fifty.

Steuben, the system administration
Nazi, bellowed his name. “Smith!”

Everyone prairie-dogged their heads
up to watch the confrontation. PJ was dressed in a Mickey Mouse t-shirt and
blue jeans. Mercifully, he didn’t have the taped-up glasses to complete the
computer-geek stereotype.

He never got along well with
Stubby, especially after PJ posted his name to the bestiality news group. The
administrator had a real office, with walls, not a padded cell like the rest of
them. The fact that he was a full foot shorter than everyone else in the office
made the nickname sting.

Maneuvering around a pile of
manuals and a disassembled tape drive, PJ stepped into the office. The
administrator was frantically trying to salvage something from this software
train wreck.

“There were so many gif files and
animation files in your last download that you filled up the disks and crashed
our mail server. I’ve been removing them all morning just to free up the space
to re-establish service. A lot of people are losing valuable machine time
because of you,” Stubby accused. The tremendous amount of incoming traffic must
have put stress on some weakness in their system.

 “I didn’t download anything today,”
PJ protested. The administrator ignored him and kept trying to stem the flow of
unwanted information. PJ did some fast math and switched to his best calming
voice. “A message that large must have been sending since before 7:00 this
morning. I never get in before 9:30. Somebody sent it. If you let me read the
message, maybe I can stop this before the whole building grinds to a halt.”

Stubby grunted his reluctant
approval and let the programmer onto his console. The mail header looked like a
tabloid headline, “Atlantis must fall!” It could have been a practical joke. It
was, after all, late March, less than a week from the infamous first of April.
The message had been sent to the White House, Senator Braithwaite, someone
called Butterfly at Fortune Aerospace, the Washington Post, a chess bulletin
board in Germany, an on-line PC magazine, Greenpeace, the Stanford physics
department, and PJ—an unlikely assortment.

Unfortunately, large chunks had
been erased and he couldn’t find the attached files: Reuter equations, Icarus
transformation, Sandia prototype (with hypertext notes), Senate briefing,
Atlantis data, WRMWD simulation (animated). On a hunch, PJ used one of his
personal tools to patch up the e-mail.

While his tool began the
reconstruction, he told Stubby, “I think I know where this is coming from, but
you’re going to have to reboot the router.”

Stubby cursed some more and went
off to the lab. PJ used the administrator’s phone to call out, because the
company blocked long-distance dial-outs from all but an elite few. Just to be
safe, he waited till he was alone before he dialed the Maryland area code.

Nick was a bit of an odd duck, a
physics major PJ had roomed with at Stanford. PJ had started out in math, but
went to computer science when he found out that it paid heaps more money for
less work. He took a lot of the department to the dark side with him, but Nick
wouldn’t budge. Money didn't interest him, and he idolized Dr. Reuter, the star
of the physics program.

PJ would always remind him that the
last great Italian mathematician had been burned at the stake for witchcraft
for claiming that the Earth revolved around the sun. Nick would come back with,
“And who was right?”

He could easily picture Nick, being
set on fire, shouting, “Still it turns!”

The operator at the other end
interrupted his reverie to ask, “What project?”

Inwardly, he winced. “Spock.” Nick
had been a serious Trekkie.

“To whom do you wish to speak?”

“Mr. Cassavettis.”

Usually, she thanked him politely
and connected his call without delay. This time she paused. “I'm sorry, but
there’s no one here by that name. With whom am I speaking?”

He hesitated because the name John
Smith made people think he was lying to them. “Wrong number, sorry,” he said,
and hung up.

PJ tried Nick’s home phone but got
the answering machine.

When he checked the computer screen
again, the reconstruction was finished. Unfortunately, all he could read was
the main document.

I’ve
rigged this evidence to transmit automatically if I don’t contact this Internet
site every three days. If you’re reading this, it is safe to assume that I am
dead or disappeared by my own government. The technical specifications and
equation modeling files attached will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that
Atlantis must be stopped. If not, may God have mercy on us all.

Nick
Cassavettis

He printed the screen out to the
device in Steuben’s office and stuffed the note in his back pocket. By the time
he checked the incoming transmission again, it had stopped. Since it would take
another hour for the systems to get back to normal again, he decided to go home
and have some lunch.

****

PJ lived in a two-bedroom
condominium just five minutes from work. On the way home, he picked up some
Mexican fast food and a huge soft drink.

Someone else on the list had to
have a copy of the whole message. Using his laptop, he contacted the bulletin
board in Germany first, but their website was down. The Greenpeace home page
had a similar problem. Next, he used a search engine to find the magazine’s
phone number. After ten minutes of transfers and holds, the assistant editor
muttered “crank” and hung up on him.

Now he was getting irritated. He
finished his meal, chugged the drink, and got serious. His next target was
Professor Anders at Stanford, the postmaster for the physics department. He was
young and the only teacher in that department likely to remember PJ at all.
Even if he didn’t know anything about Nick, he might be able to shed some light
on the Reuter equations. Unfortunately, California was three hours behind, and
the secretary wouldn’t even be in for another half an hour. PJ didn’t bother
leaving voice-mail; this was the sort of lunacy you didn’t want any electronic
record of.

Some checking indicated that
Fortune Aerospace was an Italian owned Brazilian launch facility. There had to
be a US branch. More Googling revealed that their US headquarters had recently
been leveled in an odd explosion. With no phone number, PJ sent an e-mail
entitled ‘Re:Atlantis’, leaving his work and home numbers.

The White House was out of the
question, so he called the senator’s office instead. The senator was a
well-known champion for the environment. PJ decided to take a slightly
different tack. When he finally got Braithwaite’s secretary, he asked, “Who
would I talk to if I wanted to report an environmental hazard created by a
defense contractor?”

“That would be Ms. Reese. She’s at
lunch at this time. May I take a message?”

“No. I’ll call back later.”

After nearly an hour of searching,
he was no closer than when he had started. He did a web search on Reuter. Most
sites described him only as a Nobel-prize candidate who taught undergraduate
physics in celebrated style until his recent death. That much PJ knew already.
The doctor’s obituary mentioned that his widow, Doris, had been a science
librarian at the university for years.

Nick's family and friends were no
help. His father was dead. His mother was remarried and living in Florida with some country-club member. He had no brothers or sisters. PJ hadn’t seen his
friend much after the wedding. Gloria was passionate and good looking, the
exact opposite of Nick, except for the temper. They both had short fuses. When
they broke up about six months ago, she got the house in New Mexico and a
healthy alimony payment. All Nick got from her in return was a case of
secondhand syphilis.

Since the only job she had ever
held down was tour guide at that fashion museum, she still relied on Nick to
make the mortgage. She’d know how to reach him! PJ rummaged through his address
book and found the number for their house. Gloria answered on the second ring. “Gloria?
This is PJ. I’m trying to find your ex.”

“I don’t know where that maniac is,
somewhere on the east coast the last I heard. I have a restraining order to
make sure he never gets within a hundred feet of me again.”

“Look, I know you two didn’t part
on the best of terms, but I think he may be in trouble.”

“PJ, you're a nice guy.” Meaning he
was one of the few friends Nick ever had who never hit on her. “The man’s
already over the edge. Don’t go near him, or he’ll drag you down with him.”

“Come on, he can’t be that bad. I
talked to him two weeks ago,” he responded.

She lowered her voice to a whisper.
“I’m not supposed to mention this. It was part of the terms of the settlement.
But last time I saw him, he shot a man, and then held the gun to my head till
the cops arrived.”

PJ put the story together. Nick came
home to tell her about the doctor’s diagnosis and found her in bed with some
stranger. “Yeah, well VD will make you do strange things sometimes.”

He regretted the wisecrack
immediately, because she hung up and he lost the last tangible link he had to his
friend. Looking at his watch, he decided to head back to work.

****

PJ drove a hybrid, econo-box car.
It wasn’t glamorous, but he never had to fill up except when he drove to Pennsylvania to visit his folks. Deep down, he really wanted a two-seater sports car, but
that didn’t fit in with his early retirement plans.

As he tooled into the work parking
lot, he noticed a congregation of people outside the office doors. Was it a
fire drill? Were people returning from lunch being told they were all laid off?
PJ coasted over to one of the guys he knew from downstairs. “What’s up?”

“Friggin’ Feds. They’re swarming
all over the place. They have Stubby in a wringer for something illegal, I
hear. Nobody gets in or out for now. And I’ve still got that two o’clock deadline.”

“Crap,” PJ muttered. The phone call
had been traced. Somebody wanted a lid on this in a big way. A man in a dark
suit looked out the front window, possibly trying to get a look at his license
plate.

Nervous, he gunned the motor and
took off.

He raced home in a panic. The first
chance Stubby got, the administrator would point a finger his way. Once they
got PJ’s address from personnel, there’d be a police cordon around his place.

Running inside, he grabbed a duffel
bag from the closet. Opening his drawers, he threw in t-shirts, pants, socks,
and underwear blindly. Glancing at his watch, he swore again. He grabbed
whatever was handy: cell phone, address book, laptop, and two hundred dollars
in emergency cash.

Unable to think of any other
essentials or evidence he was leaving behind, he headed for the door. When he
looked out through the peephole, two guys dressed like Mormons were coming down
the sidewalk. Sweating, he ran out the patio door, fumbled his duffel bag into
the backseat of his car, and raced off.

The answers he needed were probably
in Washington, DC.

****

When PJ finally stopped at a gas
station (where he paid cash), he made a few calls. First, he dialed Professor
Anders at Stanford. When he got a secretary, PJ said, “I need to talk to him about
some files that the FBI may be interested in.”

The programmer wasn’t prepared for
the intensity of her reply. “He’s already done everything you asked. You have
all the disks. Why can’t you people stop threatening his grants and leave him
alone?”

They moved fast. What sort of
high-security information could Nick have sent? What were the Reuter equations
about? In desperation, he had the operator connect him with Doris Reuter.

She answered on the fourth ring
with a melodious and joyful, “Hello,” as if any human contact brightened her
day.

“Mrs. Reuter, my name is PJ Smith,
a journalist doing a story on famous protégés of your husband for the alumni
magazine.” He covered the receiver of the phone as a huge, diesel truck drove
by.

“Isn’t that nice,” she said.

“I was wondering if you had a
moment to help us with some background information,” he asked. “Do you remember
a Mr. Cassavettis?”

“Nick? He’s a nice young man.
George was very fond of him. We never had any children of our own, so it came
as no surprise when George gave him first choice of his personal library in his
will. Nick was honored and spent the whole day going through the collection.
The rest I donated to the university. I’m glad to hear he turned out so well.
George always…”

“Excuse me,” PJ interrupted. “Out
of curiosity, what books did he pick?”

“The first was George’s text book
for the introductory physics course. It had no significant material worth, but
Nick wanted it because George had written notes in the margins.”

“Equations,” he stated, not even
needing to ask.

“Why, yes. Writing notes inside
books was a habit that I was never able to break George of. It was how we met,
you see. If he had a thought in passing that he didn’t want to forget, he would
just write it in whatever book he was reading. I remember…”